Part 12

You call it sundew: how it grows, If with its colour it have breath, If life taste sweet to it, if death Pain its soft petal, no man knows: Man has no sight or sense that saith.

My sundew, grown of gentle days, In these green miles the spring begun Thy growth ere April had half done With the soft secret of her ways Or June made ready for the sun.

O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower, I have a secret halved with thee. The name that is love's name to me Thou knowest, and the face of her Who is my festival to see.

The hard sun, as thy petals knew, Coloured the heavy moss-water: Thou wert not worth green midsummer Nor fit to live to August blue, O sundew, not remembering her.

FELISE

_Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?_

What shall be said between us here Among the downs, between the trees, In fields that knew our feet last year, In sight of quiet sands and seas, This year, Felise?

Who knows what word were best to say? For last year's leaves lie dead and red On this sweet day, in this green May, And barren corn makes bitter bread. What shall be said?

Here as last year the fields begin, A fire of flowers and glowing grass; The old fields we laughed and lingered in, Seeing each our souls in last year's glass, Felise, alas!

Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep, Not we, though this be as it is? For love awake or love asleep Ends in a laugh, a dream, a kiss, A song like this.

I that have slept awake, and you Sleep, who last year were well awake, Though love do all that love can do, My heart will never ache or break For your heart's sake.

The great sea, faultless as a flower, Throbs, trembling under beam and breeze, And laughs with love of the amorous hour. I found you fairer once, Felise, Than flowers or seas.

We played at bondsman and at queen; But as the days change men change too; I find the grey sea's notes of green, The green sea's fervent flakes of blue, More fair than you.

Your beauty is not over fair Now in mine eyes, who am grown up wise. The smell of flowers in all your hair Allures not now; no sigh replies If your heart sighs.

But you sigh seldom, you sleep sound, You find love's new name good enough. Less sweet I find it than I found The sweetest name that ever love Grew weary of.

My snake with bright bland eyes, my snake Grown tame and glad to be caressed, With lips athirst for mine to slake Their tender fever! who had guessed You loved me best?

I had died for this last year, to know You loved me. Who shall turn on fate? I care not if love come or go Now, though your love seek mine for mate. It is too late.

The dust of many strange desires Lies deep between us; in our eyes Dead smoke of perishable fires Flickers, a fume in air and skies, A steam of sighs.

You loved me and you loved me not; A little, much, and overmuch. Will you forget as I forgot? Let all dead things lie dead; none such Are soft to touch.

I love you and I do not love, Too much, a little, not at all; Too much, and never yet enough. Birds quick to fledge and fly at call Are quick to fall.

And these love longer now than men, And larger loves than ours are these. No diver brings up love again Dropped once, my beautiful Felise, In such cold seas.

Gone deeper than all plummets sound, Where in the dim green dayless day The life of such dead things lies bound As the sea feeds on, wreck and stray And castaway.

Can I forget? yea, that can I, And that can all men; so will you, Alive, or later, when you die. Ah, but the love you plead was true? Was mine not too?

I loved you for that name of yours Long ere we met, and long enough. Now that one thing of all endures-- The sweetest name that ever love Waxed weary of.

Like colours in the sea, like flowers, Like a cat's splendid circled eyes That wax and wane with love for hours, Green as green flame, blue-grey like skies, And soft like sighs--

And all these only like your name, And your name full of all of these. I say it, and it sounds the same-- Save that I say it now at ease, Your name, Felise.

I said "she must be swift and white, And subtly warm, and half perverse, And sweet like sharp soft fruit to bite, And like a snake's love lithe and fierce." Men have guessed worse.

What was the song I made of you Here where the grass forgets our feet As afternoon forgets the dew? Ah that such sweet things should be fleet, Such fleet things sweet!

As afternoon forgets the dew, As time in time forgets all men, As our old place forgets us two, Who might have turned to one thing then But not again.

O lips that mine have grown into Like April's kissing May, O fervent eyelids letting through Those eyes the greenest of things blue, The bluest of things grey,

If you were I and I were you, How could I love you, say? How could the roseleaf love the rue, The day love nightfall and her dew, Though night may love the day?

You loved it may be more than I; We know not; love is hard to seize. And all things are not good to try; And lifelong loves the worst of these For us, Felise.

Ah, take the season and have done, Love well the hour and let it go: Two souls may sleep and wake up one, Or dream they wake and find it so, And then--you know.

Kiss me once hard as though a flame Lay on my lips and made them fire; The same lips now, and not the same; What breath shall fill and re-inspire A dead desire?

The old song sounds hollower in mine ear Than thin keen sounds of dead men's speech-- A noise one hears and would not hear; Too strong to die, too weak to reach From wave to beach.

We stand on either side the sea, Stretch hands, blow kisses, laugh and lean I toward you, you toward me; But what hears either save the keen Grey sea between?

A year divides us, love from love, Though you love now, though I loved then. The gulf is strait, but deep enough; Who shall recross, who among men Shall cross again?

Love was a jest last year, you said, And what lives surely, surely dies. Even so; but now that love is dead, Shall love rekindle from wet eyes, From subtle sighs?

For many loves are good to see; Mutable loves, and loves perverse; But there is nothing, nor shall be, So sweet, so wicked, but my verse Can dream of worse.

For we that sing and you that love Know that which man may, only we. The rest live under us; above, Live the great gods in heaven, and see What things shall be.

So this thing is and must be so; For man dies, and love also dies. Though yet love's ghost moves to and fro The sea-green mirrors of your eyes, And laughs, and lies.

Eyes coloured like a water-flower, And deeper than the green sea's glass; Eyes that remember one sweet hour-- In vain we swore it should not pass; In vain, alas!

Ah my Felise, if love or sin, If shame or fear could hold it fast, Should we not hold it? Love wears thin, And they laugh well who laugh the last. Is it not past?

The gods, the gods are stronger; time Falls down before them, all men's knees Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb Like incense towards them; yea, for these Are gods, Felise.

Immortal are they, clothed with powers, Not to be comforted at all; Lords over all the fruitless hours; Too great to appease, too high to appal, Too far to call.

For none shall move the most high gods, Who are most sad, being cruel; none Shall break or take away the rods Wherewith they scourge us, not as one That smites a son.

By many a name of many a creed We have called upon them, since the sands Fell through time's hour-glass first, a seed Of life; and out of many lands Have we stretched hands.

When have they heard us? who hath known Their faces, climbed unto their feet, Felt them and found them? Laugh or groan, Doth heaven remurmur and repeat Sad sounds or sweet?

Do the stars answer? in the night Have ye found comfort? or by day Have ye seen gods? What hope, what light, Falls from the farthest starriest way On you that pray?

Are the skies wet because we weep, Or fair because of any mirth? Cry out; they are gods; perchance they sleep; Cry; thou shalt know what prayers are worth, Thou dust and earth.

O earth, thou art fair; O dust, thou art great; O laughing lips and lips that mourn, Pray, till ye feel the exceeding weight Of God's intolerable scorn, Not to be borne.

Behold, there is no grief like this; The barren blossom of thy prayer, Thou shalt find out how sweet it is. O fools and blind, what seek ye there, High up in the air?

Ye must have gods, the friends of men, Merciful gods, compassionate, And these shall answer you again. Will ye beat always at the gate, Ye fools of fate?

Ye fools and blind; for this is sure, That all ye shall not live, but die. Lo, what thing have ye found endure? Or what thing have ye found on high Past the blind sky?

The ghosts of words and dusty dreams, Old memories, faiths infirm and dead. Ye fools; for which among you deems His prayer can alter green to red Or stones to bread?

Why should ye bear with hopes and fears Till all these things be drawn in one, The sound of iron-footed years, And all the oppression that is done Under the sun?

Ye might end surely, surely pass Out of the multitude of things, Under the dust, beneath the grass, Deep in dim death, where no thought stings, No record clings.

No memory more of love or hate, No trouble, nothing that aspires, No sleepless labour thwarting fate, And thwarted; where no travail tires, Where no faith fires.

All passes, nought that has been is, Things good and evil have one end. Can anything be otherwise Though all men swear all things would mend With God to friend?

Can ye beat off one wave with prayer, Can ye move mountains? bid the flower Take flight and turn to a bird in the air? Can ye hold fast for shine or shower One wingless hour?

Ah sweet, and we too, can we bring One sigh back, bid one smile revive? Can God restore one ruined thing, Or he who slays our souls alive Make dead things thrive?

Two gifts perforce he has given us yet, Though sad things stay and glad things fly; Two gifts he has given us, to forget All glad and sad things that go by, And then to die.

We know not whether death be good, But life at least it will not be: Men will stand saddening as we stood, Watch the same fields and skies as we And the same sea.

Let this be said between us here, One love grows green when one turns grey; This year knows nothing of last year; To-morrow has no more to say To yesterday.

Live and let live, as I will do, Love and let love, and so will I. But, sweet, for me no more with you: Not while I live, not though I die. Goodnight, goodbye.

AN INTERLUDE

In the greenest growth of the Maytime, I rode where the woods were wet, Between the dawn and the daytime; The spring was glad that we met.

There was something the season wanted, Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet; The breath at your lips that panted, The pulse of the grass at your feet.

You came, and the sun came after, And the green grew golden above; And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter, And the meadow-sweet shook with love.

Your feet in the full-grown grasses Moved soft as a weak wind blows; You passed me as April passes, With face made out of a rose.

By the stream where the stems were slender, Your bright foot paused at the sedge; It might be to watch the tender Light leaves in the springtime hedge,

On boughs that the sweet month blanches With flowery frost of May: It might be a bird in the branches, It might be a thorn in the way.

I waited to watch you linger With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you.

And a bird overhead sang _Follow_, And a bird to the right sang _Here_; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.

I saw where the sun's hand pointed, I knew what the bird's note said; By the dawn and the dewfall anointed, You were queen by the gold on your head.

As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember Recalls a regret of the sun, I remember, forget, and remember What Love saw done and undone.

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted, And knew we should both forget.

And May with her world in flower Seemed still to murmur and smile As you murmured and smiled for an hour; I saw you turn at the stile.

A hand like a white wood-blossom You lifted, and waved, and passed, With head hung down to the bosom, And pale, as it seemed, at last.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame If you've forgotten my kisses And I've forgotten your name.

HENDECASYLLABICS

In the month of the long decline of roses I, beholding the summer dead before me, Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent, Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions Half divided the eyelids of the sunset; Till I heard as it were a noise of waters Moving tremulous under feet of angels Multitudinous, out of all the heavens; Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage, Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow; And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels, Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight, Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel, Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not, Winds not born in the north nor any quarter, Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine; Heard between them a voice of exultation, "Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded, Even like as a leaf the year is withered, All the fruits of the day from all her branches Gathered, neither is any left to gather. All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms, All are taken away; the season wasted, Like an ember among the fallen ashes. Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight, Light of snow, and the bitter light of hoarfrost, We bring flowers that fade not after autumn, Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons, Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser), Woven under the eyes of stars and planets When low light was upon the windy reaches Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows And green fields of the sea that make no pasture: Since the winter begins, the weeping winter, All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever."

SAPPHICS

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me.

Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too, Full of the vision,

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; Saw the reluctant

Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, Looking always, looking with necks reverted, Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder Shone Mitylene;

Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her Make a sudden thunder upon the waters, As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing Wings of a great wind.

So the goddess fled from her place, with awful Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her; While behind a clamour of singing women Severed the twilight.

Ah the singing, ah the delight, the passion! All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish, Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo; Fear was upon them,

While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not. Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent, None endured the sound of her song for weeping; Laurel by laurel,

Faded all their crowns; but about her forehead, Round her woven tresses and ashen temples White as dead snow, paler than grass in summer, Ravaged with kisses,

Shone a light of fire as a crown for ever. Yea, almost the implacable Aphrodite Paused, and almost wept; such a song was that song. Yea, by her name too

Called her, saying, "Turn to me, O my Sappho;" Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not Tears for laughter darken immortal eyelids, Heard not about her

Fearful fitful wings of the doves departing, Saw not how the bosom of Aphrodite Shook with weeping, saw not her shaken raiment, Saw not her hands wrung;

Saw the Lesbians kissing across their smitten Lutes with lips more sweet than the sound of lute-strings, Mouth to mouth and hand upon hand, her chosen, Fairer than all men;

Only saw the beautiful lips and fingers, Full of songs and kisses and little whispers, Full of music; only beheld among them Soar, as a bird soars

Newly fledged, her visible song, a marvel, Made of perfect sound and exceeding passion, Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders, Clothed with the wind's wings.

Then rejoiced she, laughing with love, and scattered Roses, awful roses of holy blossom; Then the Loves thronged sadly with hidden faces Round Aphrodite,

Then the Muses, stricken at heart, were silent; Yea, the gods waxed pale; such a song was that song. All reluctant, all with a fresh repulsion, Fled from before her.

All withdrew long since, and the land was barren, Full of fruitless women and music only. Now perchance, when winds are assuaged at sunset, Lulled at the dewfall,

By the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of, Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight, Ghosts of outcast women return lamenting, Purged not in Lethe,

Clothed about with flame and with tears, and singing Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven, Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity, Hearing, to hear them.

AT ELEUSIS